Jarvis: Premier Pupatello?

In this file photo, Ontario Liberal party leadership candidate Sandra Pupatello speaks during a forum at the Canadian Club of Toronto in Toronto on Thursday December 6, 2012. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn)

In the race to become the next leader of the Ontario Liberal Party, Sandra Pupatello is seen as the candidate with the best chance of defeating Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives. That’s the best reason to choose the former longtime Windsor West MPP.

Pupatello has been criticized for leaving government, then returning and then trying to distance herself from the same government. She has also been criticized for being light on policy. All valid.

When she left suddenly four months before the election in 2011, she said she’d had enough.

“I never envisioned being at Queen’s Park for 16 years,” she said, “and now with the economy getting back on track … it is the right time for me to make a change.

“What I want is the private sector,” she said.

She’d often been touted as party leader, but she told The Windsor Star it was “other people who talked about it; I never did.”

But clearly she could be wooed back, because she was. If she doesn’t win, and if the Liberals don’t win the next election, will she stay? She has said she’s here for the duration, but it’s difficult to believe, after eight years in cabinet, she would return to Opposition again.

Pupatello announced her campaign with a banner stating “Sandra … for a change.” But that’s a stretch since she was a cabinet minister in the McGuinty government for eight years. She was there for the eHealth and Ornge scandals and the controversial cancellation of a natural gas plant in Oakville. She was there for most of the spending that culminated in the $14-billion deficit.

“The only thing that kept me that long was the premier,” she said of McGuinty when she left in 2011.

She’s the establishment candidate with the most caucus support, and like the other contenders, she carries much of the baggage of a government in power for a long time.

As Ontario’s minister of economic development and trade, Pupatello travelled the globe pitching Ontario as the place to do business. She wants to do it again as premier. She’s right about the economy being the number one issue. And I bet she makes a great pitch. But this isn’t an economic plan. Like the platforms of all the leadership candidates, it needs fleshing out. (And when it came to sealing the deal, she had mixed results the first time.)

Pupatello has been a fierce Windsor booster. She’s credited with helping to snare the substantially upgraded if not deluxe Rt. Hon. Herb Gray Parkway and myriad investments in the hospitals, university, college, roads, casino and industry. But remember, her partner in Windsor’s phenomenally successful team at Queen’s Park was finance minister and Windsor-Tecumseh MPP Dwight Duncan, who carries a lot of heft (despite his svelt appearance after losing more than 50 pounds).

And while she says Windsor wants to “canonize” her (a bit arrogant from someone who’s normally pretty down-to-earth), that degree of popularity probably doesn’t extend to the rest of the province.

Does Pupatello have a new vision for Ontario? Is she future premier material? To be honest, I question whether she has the depth.

If she wins, the people she chooses for her team will be key and will say a lot. I hope she doesn’t choose Harinder Takhar, reported to be heading to Pupatello’s camp and vying to be deputy premier. By all accounts, he’s probably the least qualified candidate, and he was demoted in cabinet for thumbing his nose at the rules for conflict of interest.

But Pupatello does bring notable qualities. In a staid race with a largely unexceptional field, Pupatello, being Pupatello, has certainly brought passion and energy. She’s also one of the most personable politicians you’ll meet; you can’t not like her. And she’s not called the Warrior Princess for nothing. She one tough fighter.

You might wonder how much of a prize the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party really is. The government’s significant achievements have been overshadowed by the spectacle that was McGuinty’s departure. A huge swath of the party’s supporters, the teachers, are apoplectic after contracts were imposed on them, and the public is outraged that the legislature has been prorogued for months.

But this will be a critical job, for all of Ontario.

The issue in a leadership race isn’t who would make the best premier; it’s who can get the party elected. And in this case, the crucial question is who can defeat Hudak and his extreme right-wing, anti-labour agenda. There will be a lot on the line — maybe more than in any other vote in Ontario — in the next election, whenever it is.

Kathleen Wynne, who’s breathing down Pupatello’s neck, probably has more depth. But I don’t think she can get the party elected, and if she can’t, that won’t help anybody.

Judging by the current campaign, Pupatello still has the fire. And if the next election is the down-in-the-trenches street fight that some expect, based on the close polls, who do you want leading the charge?

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